The Rise of “Environmental Sustainability Knowledge” in Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship: An IT-Enabled Knowledge-Based View of Tourism Operators

Dependence On The Natural Environment For Ongoing Success

Tourism is a salient discipline, industry, and sector in which to investigate environmental sustainability knowledge and its management because nature-based tourism operators (NTOs) are directly involved and dependent on the quality of the natural environment on which their operations have environmental impacts. The tourism industry is highly dependent on the quality of the natural environment in which it operates (Butler 1991; Hunter and Green 1995; Australian Government Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism 2008). The tourism industry relies on the sustainability of its natural environment because the sustainable development of tourism depends on the quality and integrity of the natural environment as key selling points (Kokkrannikal 2003; Giannoni and Maupertius 2007). The favourable natural environmental quality of destinations in terms of beaches, coral reef, mountains, and forests, forms the many attractions of tourism destinations that tourists have come to enjoy (Hall and Lew 1998). Mathison and Walls (1982) commented that the natural environment is the foundation of a tourism destination because in the absence of an attractive environment, there would be very few tourism attractions.